


To B.C. I Still Love You.

by ariquitecontrary (ItsAriyanna)



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-11-08 17:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11086638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsAriyanna/pseuds/ariquitecontrary
Summary: Writing a novel on their failed love was supposed to make him move on. It didn't.Now she's back and he's never felt more lost.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Am I reaaaaaally starting a new multi chapter fic while still writing Into The Black?   
> Yes, yes I am. This idea came to me and I just had to get it out and then I was too excited to keep it to myself so here is me giving it to you. :)
> 
> I love hurting these two, oh my. It'll be worth it in the end. I hope you guys like it. 
> 
>  
> 
> (Pssssst. You guys ever seen One Tree Hill? This is really freaking loosely based off of Peyton and Lucas' relationship after high school.)

_”Maybe in another life I have her. In another life we are together and we are happy. I stay with her throughout all the years and throughout all the hardships and everything is finally right. In another life, her blonde hair is something I wake up to every morning, it’s what I help brush on nights when she’s too tired to do anything. In another life, my story has a different ending, a happy ending, the ending I dreamed of. This isn’t that life though. I have not seen that blonde hair in five years. I hardly remember the shade of green her eyes were. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night expecting to be able to reach out to her and hold her. It never happens, though. Maybe in another life but in this one? In this life I let her go.”_

A loud clapping erupts throughout the room and Jughead Jones smiles as he puts down the book and looks out to the audience. Reggie Mantle, his agent turned best friend, comes up besides him and grabs the microphone away from him as he tells the audience that Jughead will be signing books in the next twenty minutes, after a quick interview. Jughead just waves as he walks down the stairs, hiding his face from everyone. 

He hates that chapter. He hates it with everything inside of him. It’s the chapter that reminds him of the worst day of his life. Granted the entire book reminds him of it, but at the time it had been written as a nostalgic way of letting go. Whatever good that was. It seemed like he was further away from letting go than he’d ever been before. He rubs his hands over his face and shakes his head. He can’t do this; not today. 

“That was great, man!” Reggie comes up from behind him and claps him on his shoulder. Reggie knows. Well, he knows enough. It’s not Jughead’s favorite topic and very few people had known the story, but with his book out, that changed things. Everyone knew now. He wanted to talk about it, he _had_ to talk about it. So he told the world. He told everyone and no one at the same exact time. It was simultaneously the best and worst thing he’d ever done. Now everyone knew. 

“Thanks.” 

“That chapter always gets the crowd crying which means they feel for you which means they _have_ to meet you, then they’ll connect with you, then they’ll buy everything else you’ve ever written and anything else you’ll ever write.” 

“Yeah,” Jughead agrees, not really paying attention. Reggie doesn’t seem to pay attention to his mood and instead just leads him over to where the interviewer is set up. She’s with some kind of agency, Jughead doesn’t really care. They’re all the same. They always ask the same questions. He just does what he does best and sits down with her and puts on a smile. 

It’s not too long before the interview starts and the woman introduces herself along with Jughead; _Jughead Jones, author of the New York Times Best Seller “Life With You”._ They smile. Everyone is always smiling. 

“So, Jughead, you just read what’s possibly the most intense chapter of your book. It’s obviously one that’s very real for you and hits close to home. Is there any reason why you always choose that specific chapter to read?” 

“It’s a fan favorite,” he replies, memorized. “It’s the chapter where the main character realizes the reality of what’s happening. He’s losing this girl that he’s loved for what seems like his entire life, a girl that he finally has as his. It’s the hardest chapter of his life and therefore the best chapter to witness.” 

“A lot of fans were upset with the ending since it’s such a sad one, is there any chance of a sequel?”

“No. Some stories don’t get happy endings. That’s the reality of it all.” 

“Isn’t that the point of fiction, though?” She asks with a tilt of her head. “That you can give your story any ending you want? It doesn’t have to be reality.” 

“Who says it’s fiction?” 

“In your dedication, you dedicated the book to B.C. Any correlation to the book?” 

It’s a pretty brave question, but he accepts it. A journalist is a journalist. 

“Yes.” It’s all he offers. 

The interview continues on with questions about what’s in store for his future novels, his inspirations, and then a bunch of mundane questions that are standard. Overall it’s a pretty basic interview. When it ends, he finds himself exhausted. The last thing he wants to do is put on another smile and sign books. But he does. 

Reggie is by his side. He tells Jughead that he’s there to offer moral support, but Jughead knows he’s just there to check out whatever single girls show up. Apparently Jughead is “man candy” and attracts a lot of pretty young women. He doesn’t care. None of them are her so none of them matter. 

He signs the books the way he always does in his messy scrawl. He makes small talk with his fans and eventually he even finds himself having fun. Despite everything, this is what he loves to do. It’s what he was meant to do. 

He keeps his head down as the next book is life over to him. 

“Who do I make it out to?” He asks, already having his Sharpie marker ready to go.

“Elizabeth Cooper.” 

The familiar voice and the name release a shock through him that has his entire body going rigid. His grip on the marker tightens and his breathing stops. He shuts his eyes tightly, preparing himself for whatever he’s about to witness. He opens his eyes slowly and brings his head up. 

Green eyes stare back at him, just as gentle and open as the day he’d first seen them. She looks exactly the same, still as young and beautiful as the last time he’d seen her five years ago.

“Hello Juggie,” she says. 

Jughead just stares.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap! Thank you to everyone who's commented or left kudos on this story. It means the world to me. <3
> 
> I'm thinking that at the start of every chapter I'll have little excerpts from Jughead's book. What do ya'll think?   
> Anyways this chapter is kind of reaaaaally fucking sad because it shows a flashback to a breakdown that Jughead has. It's necessary though, so you can understand why Jughead feels so much anger and resentment towards Betty. There will probably be a few flashbacks throughout this story, not a lot though. This is about their future after all. :) This is a tough one guys but I promise, there WILL be a happy ending. Trust me on it and buckle in.

_She laughs loudly and her head falls back against the bed frame. She looks heavenly with the way the morning sunlight hits her just right. I’m not a religious person, I never have been, but when I look at her I swear it’s like I’m looking at an angel._

_“J, stop!” My nickname falls easily from her lips. Her lips which look so beautiful in this moment. Before I even question it, I’m leaning forward and capturing her mouth against mine. I’ve kissed her millions of times so our lips move against each other like an old love song. I’ve kissed her a million times, but each time is somehow better than before. I briefly wonder if I’ll ever get tired of kissing her. She wraps her long, lean legs around my waist and that’s when I realize that no, I’m never getting tired of this.”_

For weeks, months, and then years he had dreamed of this moment. He had wished for this moment countless time. He had dreamed of what he would say, of all the things he would have to tell her once he saw her again. He had entire paragraphs wrapped around in his head, words that he was ready to scream at her.

He doesn’t say any of them. In fact, he doesn’t say a single thing. 

He pauses, stares at her. He wonders what his face looks like. He can’t feel anything. He _doesn’t_ feel anything. He doesn’t feel happy. He doesn’t feel mad. He isn’t sad or confused. He isn’t anything. 

Why can’t he feel anything? 

As if he’s in a trance, he looks back down and writes out her name, a name he once used to trace across her back while they laid together naked in bed. Except back then he used to write out Elizabeth Jones. 

He writes: _”To Elizabeth Cooper, thank you. -Jughead Jones.”_

It’s what he writes on everyone’s book. It’s his signature signing. It’s fucking irony in the worst possible way is what it is. Here he is, thanking the woman who shattered his heart and any possibility he ever had at being in love. This book, this fucking tragedy of a book, is all her fault. 

It’s not _because_ of her. 

It’s _all her fault_. 

There’s a big fucking difference and Jughead knows it. 

_Thank you,_ he wants to write. _Thank you for breaking my heart and making me a millionaire at the same time. Thank you for encouraging me to always follow my dreams and then leaving me right as I did._

“Here you go,” is what he says, offering what he hopes is a smile. “Have a good day.” He’s trying to look straight through her instead of at her, but he still sees the way she gives him a confused glance before Reggie instructs her to move along. 

“Was that—?” Reggie starts looking wary once he comes back. 

“Yes.” Is all he says. 

He smiles at a teen girl who stands in front of him next. 

“Hello,” he greets. “Who am I making this out to?”

 

They never have anything good to drink at these things. His fingers ache to grab a bottle of Bourbon while grasping a glass of water instead. He doesn’t drink often, but sometimes… sometimes things get a little hard. He tries to remember if he still has the bottle of Bourbon that Reggie had gotten him for his birthday. He hopes he does. 

Reggie, fat help he is, finally found a woman lovely enough for his ridiculous standards. He was a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy. Jughead always told him that he was going to get his karma one day. Reggie insists that his karma would be in the form of a 5’9 leggy blonde with a great chest. Jughead knew better though. Life doesn’t work that way. 

So while he was ready to head out, go home, and drink the mess of today away, he would ultimately be doing it alone. The only way he could coax Reggie into joining him would be if he decided to turn the whole affair into a party for Reggie’s “friend” to feel comfortable at and while he loved to pretend that things were okay, Jughead wasn’t up for playing pretending right now. 

Out of every possible scenario that he could think of for today, this definitely was not one of then. He never expected to see her again. He _wasn’t_ supposed to ever see her again. That’s how it was, that was the plan. She left him. She packed up everything out of their little apartment and walked out, never looking back. 

The little apartment that she had picked out, the one with the terrible yellow wallpaper in the restroom that she absolutely adored. The one with the creepy washroom that they made horror stories about together. The one with the broken kitchen drawer that always stuck out and jabbed them in the sides. She had picked it out. Jughead didn’t want it. It was too small for him and in the side of town that he had no care to be in, but she wanted it. 

So he bought it. 

And then she left him. She left him in a place that still smelled like her sometimes. Sometimes he’d wake up and go to the restroom and he could see her in the shower, smiling and taunting him to come join her. He’d turn on his side in bed and see her sleeping peacefully, blonde hair fanned out on the pillow beneath her. He never touched her side of the bed, never slept in it; just in case she ever wanted to come home. If she ever came home he wanted everything to be exactly as it was. So he never touched or moved a single thing. He left everything in place. 

It wasn’t until Archie came over one day that everything went to shit. 

_The apartment was a mess. Jughead was a mess. Everything was a damn mess._

_“Don’t mind the mess,” he told Archie, just like he did every single time his best friend came to visit. Archie knew the rules by now. Don’t touch a thing, don’t move a thing._

_They walked over to the living room together. Jughead hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in days and he felt very sluggish._

_“You don’t look too good,” Archie said softly. “Seriously man, your eyes look black as hell and you’ve lost a lot of weight, Jughead. This isn’t normal.”_

_Jughead didn’t say anything. It was the same old bullshit that everyone told him. He didn’t care what any of them had to say. He wanted them all to fuck off._

_“I think you should get out of town for a while. You said you wanted to go to Los Angeles, right? This would be the perfect time.”_

_“Betty was supposed to go with me,” he says lazily, leaning back against the couch._

_“You know that’s not going to happen, Jughead.”_

_“It could.”_

_“Jughead…” Archie whispers. “She’s moving on, man.”_

_Jughead shuts his eyes tightly. He doesn’t need to hear this. He doesn’t want to hear this._

_“Look, Ronnie has this friend, she’s single—.”_

_“No,” Jughead snaps._

_Archie doesn’t say anything back and Jughead slowly starts to nod off, exhaustion finally coming over him. He’s just about to drift off completely when a loud crash comes from the side of him._

_His blood runs cold as he looks up and sees Archie standing wide eyed over a mess on the floor. Jughead’s eyes follow where Archie’s are focused on the floor; to a shattered vase._

_“Jughead, I’m so sorry. Let me clean—.”_

_“Betty bought me that,” Jughead whispers, tears springing to his eyes as they stay fixed on the pieces scattered across the floor. “It was… it was… I was….”_

_“Jughead?”_

_“We need to fix it,” he says in a rush, getting on his hands and knees in front of the vase._

_“Jughead! You’re going to cut yourself!”_

_“I need to fix it,” he says to himself, picking up various pieces. “I need to fix it so when she comes back it’ll be okay.”_

_“Jug…”_

_“It’s okay, I can fix it. I’ll fix it and when she comes back, everything will be okay. It’s okay. I just… I just need to fix it.”_

_“Jughead stop!” Archie yells out as he kneels behind Jughead, grabbing his arms and cradling him against his chest while restraining him at the same time. “You’re bleeding!”_

_Jughead looks down at his hands to see a few cuts. They don’t matter though. He needs to fix the vase._

_“She won’t come back!” He yells at Archie as he tries to break free from his hold. “If it’s not the same then she won’t come back!”_

_“She’s not coming back, Jughead. She isn’t coming back.”_

_“You don’t understand,” he sobs out, finally giving up. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.” He doesn’t know if he’s talking about not being able to fix the vase or her leaving. “I love her.”_

_“I know,” Archie whispers out. It sounds like he’s crying too, but Jughead can’t see his face. “I’m so sorry, Jughead.”_

_“I loved her,” he repeats. “I just wanted to show her I loved her.”_

_“I know, I know.”_

Jughead doesn’t remember how long he and Archie stayed there, Archie rocking him back and forth as he cried and cried. He hadn’t cried at all when she left. If he cried then it made it real. So he never cried. 

And then he did. He cried with Archie and that’s when he knew it was over. Betty wasn’t coming back for him. She left him broken and alone and he had to get used to it. So he packed up his bags and moved to the one place he knew she’d never go; Los Angeles. It was across the country and far away enough from Riverdale that he’d never have to worry about seeing her face again, of being reminded of the pain he went through. 

Yet here she is; or was. 

It was a fucking joke. He wanted to call Archie, to know if Archie knew about this and why he hadn’t warned him. He wasn’t sure if he still had that kind of privilege though. He and Archie hadn’t talked in a while. It was just so hard for him to have to hear Archie cut off sentences or come up with lies whenever he was hanging out with Betty. He’d try to fill Jughead in on what was going on with Betty’s life sometimes and Jughead just couldn’t handle it. He still talked to Archie, every now and then but not nearly enough. He wondered if they could even be considered friends anymore. 

He misses Archie. 

It was why he was so thankful for Reggie. He’d only met Reggie once he made it to Los Angeles and got his book together, but the other man was a freaking godsend. Born and raised in Los Angeles himself, he knew all the great spots and must sees. Reggie made his pathetic life just a little more tolerable and he was so grateful. Reggie would never be able to take Archie’s place, but he was a nice distraction and an amazing friend and agent. 

He wondered if maybe he should give Archie a call.

He tells all of the staff goodbye and thanks them for having him. He’s tired, his day has been too long and way too unwanted. He just wants to go home, have a drink, and crash out. 

The sun is just starting to set once he gets outside and he wonders how the time managed to pass so quickly. 

“You took a while,” a small voice comes from behind him. 

_This cannot be happening._

He shuts his eyes tightly and breathes out harshly through his nose before turning around. 

Betty Cooper stands in front of him _yet again_. Her smile looks a bit more forced this time and she looks really unsure of herself. It’s not a look he’s used to seeing on her. He can see his book tucked underneath his arm and he wants to rip it out of her hands. He suddenly hates it with everything inside of him. That damn book is the reason why she left him. 

“Look,” he says as politely as he can, “I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t know what you want. I don’t want any issues. I just want to go along with my life as I was.” 

“Jughead, please. I want to talk,” she pouts and widens her eyes at him. A look that used to guarantee that she’d get her way, but now it just made him angry. 

“No,” he snaps out. “No, I don’t want to talk. If you wanted to talk so bad then you should have tried _five years ago!_ It’s been five years, Betty, five fucking years. I’m okay now. I don’t stay up all night wishing that you’d call me. I can _breathe_ again. I’m doing fine and you suddenly decide to show up out of nowhere?”

“Juggie, please,” she begs, looking torn. Jughead doesn’t feel sorry for her. He wore that same look for years.

“Do _not_ call me that,” he seethes. “I don’t know what you want, but leave me alone! I don’t want anything from you. I don’t want to see you ever again. I don’t want you to ever try to contact me again. I want you to get back on whatever plane you flew in on and get the hell away from me.” He knows he’s being mean, but he can’t help it. If he isn’t mean then he’ll cry and he can’t cry anymore tears over Betty Cooper. 

Betty just looks at him with shocked, sad eyes. Her mouth is slightly open as if she wants to say something, but doesn’t. 

“Have a nice life,” he tells her before turning away. 

She doesn’t call after him. 

Which is good. 

It’s good because that way he doesn’t have to turn around and show his tear stained face to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DON'T HATE ME.   
> Things are going to get worse before they get better, you've been warned! This is an angsty one. I know a lot of you were wondering how Reggie would fit in as Juggie's best friend. It's not an interesting story, I'm afraid lol. I just really wanted to explore Reggie's character and it didn't fit well if he had gone to Riverdale High, so let's just flow with this one, yes? :)
> 
> I hope you guys liked this sad ass chapter and don't leave me. <3   
> As always, come visit me on [tumblr](http://camelotskingz.tumblr.com)!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you look at that... ANOTHER update. :)  
> So yes, these chapters a kind of short but that's because I'm planning for this fic to be a little one thus the small chappies. <3 (also it allows me to update more frequently.) hope you guys don't mind.
> 
> Okay so there's a new but familiar face in this one and you guys aren't going to like her, lololololol. Just trust me, okay? We'll get through this heartache together.

_It’s crazy how you can know someone your entire life and still not know them at all. I had known her my entire life. I’d known her since we were babies, crying with snot all over our faces. I was there when she lost her first tooth and when she learned how to ride a bike. I watched her go through her first crush and first heartbreak. I watched her try every sport possible until she finally gave up on them all. I watched her grow._

_And yet I had never seen her like this._

_She stopped the entire room as soon as she walked into the gym that night. She was wearing a beautiful silver dress with sleeves that hung off her shoulders. Her golden hair was down, framing her face and in that moment I swear I had never seen anything so beautiful._

_I’d known her my whole life, but for the first time in my life I was actually seeing her and I loved what I was seeing._

 

He doesn’t remember passing out on his couch, but he must have because when he wakes up it’s ten pm and there’s a bowl of cheese puffs in front of him, half eaten and a soda can has spilt all over his coffee table. 

“Shit,” he groans to himself as he sits up. There’s a sharp pain in his head and now he knows why he tries not to drink. The fact that he even got drunk makes him feel a bit ashamed and pathetic, but then he remembers the reason why and suddenly he doesn’t feel so bad. He deserves a good drink. 

But right now?

Right now he really needs to throw up those cheese puffs.

 

The sun is bright and shining when he meets up with Reggie at a cafe by his apartment. He’s wearing sunglasses on inside and immediately Reggie grins when he sees him.

“Jug, my man!” He greets as he claps him on the shoulder. “Did someone have a wild night last night? You totally did, didn’t you? I told you, chicks love the whole broody author thing you’ve got going on. Was she good?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Jughead says as he pulls away from his friend and takes a seat at a table in the back. “Betty came up to me after the signing.”

“Holy shit,” Reggie says, eyes wide as he takes a seat in front of Jughead. “Ruthless ex-girlfriend Betty?”

Jughead just nods, placing his head into his hand. 

“What did she want?”

“To talk.” 

“And did you?”

“Hell no,” Jughead says sharply. “I told her to leave me the fuck alone.”

“Good, good. I had a crazy ex once, almost had to get a restraining order. Can you believe my dick just drives girls crazy, you know? Reggie Mantle is a lover unlike no other, my friend.” 

Jughead just rolls his eyes before hissing at the pain that erupts in his head at the small action. It’s not even like Betty is a crazy ex girlfriend, because she isn’t. He just has no idea what the hell she wants from him. What could she possibly want to talk about? She’s moved on, he’s moved on (or so he tells himself) and that was all there was to it. There was no need to talk anymore. He didn’t even want closure with her. He just wanted to be left alone. 

“She doesn’t have your number or anything, does she?” 

“No,” Jughead answers. He had changed his number when he moved over to California and he made everyone promise that they wouldn’t give it out to anyone including Betty. There just wasn’t a reason for her to have his number anymore. They hadn’t ended on good terms.

The waitress comes over and takes their order before leaving to get everything ready for them. They discuss an upcoming book fair that Reggie thinks will be good for his image. Truth be told, Jughead’s tired of all the book fairs and interviews. He wants to take a break, but he knows that isn’t an option. This is what he signed up for. 

Their “meeting” ends soon, Reggie telling him that he has to meet some girl for lunch. Jughead briefly wonders what it’s like to be Reggie, to have any girl you want without a care in the world. He wonders if he could do it. 

Of course not. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. No one matches up to her. Despite the fact that she broke his heart, he still loved her. He would always love her. He wasn’t sure that he was in love with her anymore, though. He thinks that part of him must have died a long time ago. 

But yet he still couldn’t move on. He had tried countless times with the help of Reggie, but it never led anywhere. Maybe it didn’t work out because he didn’t want it to. He wasn’t sure how to even date anymore, it had been so long. Maybe it was time he got out there and at least _tried_. He deserved happiness. Just because it hadn’t worked out with Betty, that didn’t mean that he was destined to be alone forever. He could be happy. He _would_ be happy.

He shot Reggie a text, asking if he was free to go out that night and he walked home feeling a lot more confident and free than he had in a while. 

 

Clubbing is clubbing. It’s not the first time he’s done it and it probably won’t be the last. The music is too loud and terrible, it’s hot and he’s sweaty after only ten minutes. The drinks are good though, which is kind of the only plus side. 

As per usual Reggie has left him for some girl and if Jughead really tries to focus, he can see them out on the dance floor grinding to some remix of a One Direction song. It’s a weird mix, but for some reason it _really_ goes together. He’s not sure if it’s the alcohol or if he’s just feeling so happy, but he finds himself swinging his hips around to the beat. 

He can’t dance, he knows this. Betty used to make fun of him over it. 

He shakes that thought away as soon as it enter his mind. Tonight isn’t about her, it’s about him. If he wants to dance then he’ll dance. 

“You look like you’re having fun,” a high pitched voice says next to him. He can hardly hear whoever it is and he looks around before seeing a small, blonde haired girl with blue eyes staring up at him. 

“I am,” he answers truthfully. 

“Wanna have some fun together?” The girl smirks at him and Jughead isn’t a complete loser. He’s perfectly aware of what she’s suggesting. He pauses and thinks about it. He knows it’s stupid, but for some reason he feels like he’s cheating on Betty even though they haven’t been together for five fucking years. 

Fuck that. 

He’s not cheating. He’s single. He’s _been_ single. Betty doesn’t get to just show up out of nowhere and turn his life upside down again. 

“Sure,” he says. The tiny blonde grins and grabs his hand, leading him over to the restrooms in the back of the club. It’s quieter back here but that probably has something to do with the fact that it’s full of couples just making out everywhere and not talking. 

The tiny girl leads him into the boy’s restroom and eagerly pushes him up against the wall, immediately devouring his lips with hers. He’s taken aback by her sudden strength and for a moment he’s so shocked that he doesn’t even kiss her back. When he finally starts to kiss her though, it doesn’t feel right. She’s too tiny, her lips don’t move against his the right way. She’s so small, he has to bend down just to reach her lips and it’s starting to hurt his back. Suddenly he gets a sick feeling in his stomach, one that he recognizes all too well, and he barely pulls away before he’s throwing up all over the bathroom floor. 

The tiny blonde girl stays standing in front of him, eyes wide and face morphed into one of complete bewilderment. 

“Holy shit,” she says in amusement, “I don’t think I’ve ever repulsed a guy so much that he threw up after kissing me. This is a new one for the books.” 

“I’m sorry,” is all he says before he rushes out of the club, not even bothering to find Reggie. He flags down the first cab he sees and gets in it quickly, rambling his address to the driver.

As soon as he gets home, he goes to his bed and lays down. He stares out of the large window by his bed and looks out at the city under him. It’s alive and full of people having the time of their lives. Not for the first time Jughead feels an irrational jealousy for all the people who are out their with their significant other, happy and loved without a care in the world. That should be him. He was good. He was a good person. He deserved happiness. 

_What does he have to do to be happy?_ It’s the last thought on his mind before he falls asleep. That night he dreams of blonde hair and eyes so green they match his jealousy at the world.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, the amount of love this fic is getting is so amazing to me! I was so scared about writing one as angsty as this, but I'm so happy you like it! 
> 
> In this chapter: Jughead gives an old friend a call and discovers that he misses home more than he thought.

_I was jealous, it was that simple. There weren’t any fancy words to use right now or anyway to sugarcoat it. I was just jealous. Why should a guy, some guy who didn’t know a single thing about her, be able to take her out and hold her hand as if he knew her? He didn’t and he never would. I know I had no one to blame but myself. I was the one who was way too scared to tell her how I felt. I was the one who was too scared of rejection._

_“Just say something,” my best friend encouraged me for what seemed like the hundredth time. “I bet things go differently than you have them planned in your head.”_

_Maybe that’s what I was so scared of. What if everything did go right? What if everything worked out perfectly?_

_Because I know better than anyone that perfect doesn’t exist. Even if you think you have it, it’s destined to fall apart and crash around you, leaving you with nothing but the pieces to pick up and try to glue back together. You can never fix something that’s broken, though, no matter how hard you try and that’s what I was scared of._

_I couldn’t have something perfect in front of me, just to have it break and leave me with the pieces. Not with her._

 

He wants to write. His fingers ache to type away at his keyboard, but he’s blank. He doesn’t have a single thought in his mind that he can put to paper. He doesn’t think he’s ever had this kind of writer’s block before. He stares at a blinking cursor on a blank screen for fifteen minutes before he finally gives up and shuts his laptop down.

It’s nine in the morning and he’s blank and bored. He’d give Reggie a call, but he knows better by now that the other man won’t be awake and even if he is, nine in the morning is way too early to deal with Reggie Mantle. And besides Reggie, he doesn’t have very many friends. 

It’s not like he’s ever had a huge friend circle, even back in Riverdale he only really had two people that he considered friends of his. Once he moved to Los Angeles, that circle decreased to just one. Sure he had aquantinces, fellow authors, that he’d met through conventions or things like that, but none that he’d really consider a friend. He had never cared much for making friends with any of them, and he was kind of regretting that decision right about now. He had never realized just how lonely he was over here.

In the back of his mind a thought passes by, one that he’s been considering for a while now but that he’s too nervous to listen to. 

_Call Archie_. 

He knows that he should, that he probably really needs to. He also knows that if he calls Archie, he can get some insight as to what Betty is doing in California. It’s been a few months since he’s talked to the redhead and starting the call with: “Why is my ex in Los Angeles?” seems kind of rude, but he doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to say. Somewhere along the line he forgot how to be Archie’s friend. It’s sad, but maybe that’s life. Maybe that’s growing up. 

Growing up sucks. He’s never felt more alone. 

“Fuck it,” he whispers to himself as he grabs his phone before he can talk himself out of it. The number is the first one in his contacts and he clicks it before he can think about it. 

As soon as he hears the line ringing, he wonders if he has enough time to hang up before Archie gets the call notification. Just as he’s about to hang up the phone, the line stops ringing. 

_“Hello?”_

Jughead stays quiet. He hasn’t heard Archie’s voice in so long and it kind of makes him want to cry. He misses Riverdale so much, no matter how much he tries to deny it. He misses being able to sleep without the sound of sirens in the background. He misses how everyone knew everyone. He wonders if everyone’s still there. People didn’t really move out of Riverdale. Sometimes he even wishes he hadn’t. He never would have, but things change. 

_“Jughead?”_

“Hey, man,” Jughead greets back, trying to sound nonchalant. “How are you?”

_“Holy shit, Jughead!”_ Archie laughs. He still sounds the same. Jughead wonders if he sounds the same. _“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”_

Jughead hums. “Yeah, yeah it has.” 

_”I saw you on TV the other day. That was pretty funny.”_

Archie says it so easily, so carefree, as if he’s happy for Jughead and Jughead wants to scream. The fact that his once best friend has to resort to seeing him on television to see him at all is so wrong, all of this is wrong. Why hasn’t he ever noticed how wrong this was? 

_“Veronica enjoyed it,”_ Archie says again. _“She still can’t believe that you’re the famous one.”_

Jughead laughs uneasily. This conversation is making him so uncomfortable. Why does talking to Archie feel so uncomfortable? When did things get so bad? 

“How are things?” 

_“They’re good. Everyone’s good. We miss you.”_

Jughead wants to know who “we” is, but he doesn’t ask. 

“I miss everyone,” he says back and he never realized just how true it was. He thinks he might even miss Cheryl Blossom’s crazy ass at this point. 

_“You okay, man?”_ Archie says and Jughead realizes that at some point in this conversation, he started tearing up and his lip was wobbling. 

“Yeah, yeah I’m good.” He bites his lip and takes a deep breath. He needs to get straight to the point and end this conversation already before he starts sobbing to Archie. “Did you know Betty was coming to L.A.?” 

Archie chokes on something and Jughead waits for him to get himself together. 

_“Excuse me?”_

“You didn’t know?” He asks, unbelieving. “You really expect me to believe that?” 

Archie pauses and the line is quiet for a few seconds before he yells out. 

_“VERONICA!”_

Okay, that actually explains everything. Jughead hears muffled voices and Archie sounds pissed while Veronica is talking at a hundred words per second in the background. 

_“Jughead!”_ A high pitched voice rings out on the phone and he groans. 

“Hey, Veronica.” 

_“I miss you! I saw you on TV the other day! You look so good. Honestly, are you single?”_

“Why are you asking?” 

_“No reason,”_ she hums. _“So how’s life?”_

“Life was fine,” he says sharply, lying, “until my ex showed up here. Did you have something to do with this?” 

_“Jug,”_ she whines, but he can tell that the false excitement she was showing is going away. _“I think you should talk to her.”_

“Veronica, what the fuck did you do?” 

_“I didn’t do anything!”_

“You’re a terrible liar.” 

_“Just talk to her, trust me. Have you seen her?”_

“I have,” Veronica squeals at that. “I told her to leave me the hell alone.” 

This time he can hear Archie groan in the background while Veronica gasps. 

_“Jughead, you didn’t!”_

“Yes, I did!” He shouts, finally cracking. “I was doing just fine without her here, Veronica! Why is she here? What did you tell her? What _happened_?” 

_“Jughead—.”_

There’s crackling over the line and he grimaces as he pulls the phone away. 

_“Look, man,”_ it’s Archie on the line again, _“I don’t know what happened, I thought Betty was visiting some family in New York, but if she’s in L.A. then maybe you should just talk to her.”_

“You’re serious?” Jughead laughs. “You want me to just sit down with the girl who broke my heart five years ago and act like nothing happened? You want me to talk to her?” 

_“Yes, I know she hurt you and I’m not making excuses for her, but for what it’s worth you should know that she hasn’t moved on.”_

The words shouldn’t matter to him, he doesn’t _want_ them to matter, but they do. They really fucking matter. He shuts his eyes and tries to level his breathing. 

“It’s been five years,” he whispers out, feeling broken. He keeps repeating that phrase and it’s getting a bit redundant but he can’t help it. “If she wanted to talk to me so badly then why didn’t she come when I first moved here four years ago? Or when I was still living in Riverdale? There was plenty of time to talk then and I’m sorry but I’m done.” 

_“Before you hang up,”_ Archie says, literally just as Jughead was pulling the phone away from his face, _“Ronnie told me that she’s staying at the Sheraton downtown. She’ll be there until Wednesday. Think wisely about this, Jug. And remember to call every once in a while. You’re still my best friend.”_

The line goes dead and Jughead pulls the phone away slowly, Archie’s words sinking into his head. The way he worded it was off, saying that Jughead was _his_ best friend, instead of him being Jughead’s best friend. It makes him feel like shit. 

He thinks about Archie telling him that Betty’s staying here until Wednesday. What the hell is he supposed to do with that information? 

It’s Sunday now. Does he wait these next few days out? Does he stay locked up inside of his apartment and just turn off his phone until it’s Thursday and he’s safe again? 

Or does he actually go to her hotel? 

He knows what the smart choice is, the choice that guarantees no hurt. He can just ignore the fact that Betty’s here and then when she leaves, he can continue on with his life as he had before she showed up. 

The same sad, boring life. 

He groans as he throws himself onto his couch, wishing he had just called Reggie instead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Does Jughead go see Betty? Or does he somehow stay locked up in his apartment for three days? ;)
> 
> Thank you for reading!! I know a lot of you are dying to see what happened between Betty and Jughead and I promise that part is coming REALLY soon, probably within the next two or three chapters.  
> As always, feel free to talk to me on [tumblr](http://camelotskingz.tumblr.com). <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING:** There is drug use in this chapter. 
> 
> I was listening to Fix You by Coldplay and I got hit with the sad feels so that's why the excerpt is sad, but ALSO it plays a part of why Betty left Jughead. There's a teeeeeny tiny hint for you guys that's actually kind of not even a hint at all, I'm sorry. (I love hearing why ya'll think she left him. Some of you are actually REALLY close. Most of ya'll are thinking of the most fucked up sad shit though and tbh... you guys are giving me ideas that I was never even considering, MWAHAHAHA.) 
> 
> See you at the end. :)

_Tears are streaming down her face. She’s sobbing into my chest and I’m holding her as tightly as possible. I wish I could take away all of her pain, all of the sadness and hurt she feels. I’d do anything to make sure that she never feels this way again._

_“I’m sorry,” is all I tell her because it’s all I can say. It’s the only thing I can offer her right now and it’s not enough. I know it’s not enough, but I wish it was. “I’m so sorry.”_

_“He’s gone,” she cries out. “He’s gone, I can’t…” her cries turn into heart wrenching screams, it’s the worst sound I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Each cry makes my heart clench more and more until I’m crying along with her._

_“I got you,” I whisper into her hair as I shut my eyes tightly, willing my tears to stop. “I’m here.”_

_She’s crying and it’s a terrible situation, an unbearable one, but she still looks so beautiful. This beautiful, broken girl is in my arms and no matter what I do, I know I can’t make this better. This is the one thing I can’t fix._

_“Make it stop,” she cries into my chest, “make it stop.”_

_“Baby, I can’t. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to do,” I say brokenly._

_“Fix me,” she begs. “Fix me.”_

 

For three days Jughead paces his apartment, wondering if he should go see Betty. He repeats Archie’s advice in his head over and over again like a prayer. He thinks of all the possible outcomes that could come out of this. He thinks of all the ways it could end. 

On Tuesday night, he puts on a coat and walks over to his front door. He just stares at the doorknob before shaking his head and turning away, going back to his room.

Early Wednesday morning, he gets dressed and actually opens his front door before shutting it again and walking back over to his couch.

In the end he doesn’t see her. 

He paces his apartment for three days straight, taking Archie’s words into account, wondering if he should just suck it up and see her. But he doesn’t. 

He does exactly what a coward would do and he stays locked up in his apartment. Los Angeles may be a big city but he knows that with the way fate seems to have it out for him, he’d see her if he just tried to go get some coffee down the street. 

He knows he’s being a coward, but he can’t help it. A part of him does want to talk to her, to ask her all of the questions flowing through his mind, but a bigger part of him is too scared to even look her way. 

As cool and cruel as he tried to be at the signing, he was surprised he didn’t immediately fall to his knees in front of her and beg for her back right there and then. Why should he beg for her, though? He wasn’t the one who left her. He didn’t break her heart. He shouldn’t even want her back at all, but he’d be lying if he said a part of him didn’t. 

Betty Cooper was his first love. Maybe she was destined to be his only love if the other night at the club was anything to go by. He wasn’t sure what this meant for his future. Maybe he’d live a lonely life. That’s okay. Tons of people do it all the time. Why was he any different? Why should Jughead get a happy ending? What had he ever done to deserve one? 

Wednesday night at 11:43 PM, Archie sends him a simple text that leaves him feeling even more shitty than he already did. 

**I’m sorry things didn’t work out.**

That’s all the text says and Jughead doesn’t even respond back. Betty must be back in Riverdale already. He wonders what she told Archie and Veronica. He knows that the reason things didn’t work out this time was because he refused to see her. He knows that this time it’s his fault. But what was there to even work out? What could Betty have possibly told him that would make the past five years okay? 

It doesn’t matter now. There’s no reason for him to sit around and think about what could have been. Now he can continue on with his life just like he had before; not exactly happy, but content. He could do this. 

He takes a walk Thursday afternoon. The loud city takes his mind off of things as he takes in the world around him. He stops at his favorite cafe and orders coffee and a bagel. He doesn’t pay attention to the taste and he finishes before he even realize it. His movements are forced that entire day. He goes through the motions throughout the day, but he doesn’t pay attention to any of it. He doesn’t know when he got home or how he cooked dinner or what it even tasted like. He doesn’t remember watching his favorite show before bed. He doesn’t really take any of it in. He feels like a robot. 

Friday is better. 

On Friday he wakes up to a text from Reggie saying that he wants to go out to the club that night. Usually Jughead would be against this, especially since his last clubbing experience was a wreck, but he agrees. He won’t drink, he doesn’t even want to get drunk, but it’ll be nice to leave the house with a friend. Reggie is the exact kind of person he needs to be with right now; someone easygoing and fun that’ll make things a little better. 

He spends the day watching cooking shows and cleaning. It’s uneventful; it’s a normal day. When Reggie picks him up, he’s more than excited to be leaving his apartment. The car ride is full of conversation about his best friend’s latest conquest and Jughead hardly pays attention, only adding in commentary when needed. 

The club is packed when they finally arrive. There’s a line outside and he feels bad for the people who have to stand in it. Being Reggie’s friend has its perks. There were no waiting lines when your name was Reggie Mantle and Jughead took great pleasure in being his plus one. 

“I want a drink. What do you want?” 

Jughead tells him to get him a coke. Reggie rolls his eyes but nods anyway. They sit in a VIP booth towards the back of the club. Some of Reggie’s friends are already there and they greet Jughead as if they’ve known him for years. He doesn’t even know any of their names. 

It isn’t long before Reggie leaves to the dance floor with a pretty redhead, leaving Jughead alone with random people he doesn’t know. He doesn’t mind though. The booth he’s sitting in is comfortable and he can feel the bass of the music flowing through him and it’s nice. Everything is nice. 

For a while. 

One of the guy’s sitting at the booth whispers something to the girl next to him, who smirks and pulls a tiny capsule out of her bag. Jughead watches as she opens the silver capsule and pours its contents onto a makeup mirror sitting on the table. 

“You want some?” 

He isn’t aware that she’s speaking to him until the guy next to him nudges him. 

“You want some, man?” He asks. 

He’s never actually seen it in person before, but he isn’t stupid. He knows what’s sitting in front of him. It’s cocaine. It’s actually fucking cocaine. These people are doing coke in the middle of a nightclub like it’s no big deal. The girl takes a hundred dollar bill out of her purse and rolls it up. The guy next to her is cutting lines, nice and neatly, he makes it look like a fucking art form and Jughead can’t stop watching them. 

He watches as the girl snorts two long lines and then he watches as the guy next to her does the same. 

“Want some, Jughead?” 

He doesn’t know how the girl knows his name, he doesn’t remember introducing himself. She’s staring at him with a lazy smile and brown glazed over eyes. 

“Dude, try some, this shit is so dope,” the guy says as he grins widely at Jughead, looking almost manic. 

“I don’t…” Jughead whispers, trailing off. He doesn’t know what to say. They look so happy. He wants to be that happy. He wants to feel happy. He feels his fingers twitch from where they’re placed on his knees under the table. He could do one line, couldn’t he? It’s not bad if it’s just one line. One line wouldn’t hurt him. Don’t famous people do this kind of thing? He was famous… kind of. 

This was a happy drug from what he knew and he just wanted to feel happy. He deserved to feel happy. He would do one line, feel happy, and that would be that. 

The girl giggles for absolutely no reason and hands Jughead the hundred dollar bill she rolled up with shaky hands. 

“Unless you want something harder,” the guy next to him says with a smirk as if cocaine isn’t hard itself, as if it’s something that everyone does in their free time. “I bet you’re into that hard shit, aren’t you? You definitely look like you like downers.” 

“Downers?” Jughead asks as he takes the rolled up bill, staring at it in fascination. 

“Yeah, downers, you know, H?” 

“H?” He asks, growing more and more confused. 

“Heroin, silly,” the girl says with another giggle. She’s shaking her leg uncontrollably under the table and her whole body moves with it. “We can get you some if you want.” 

What the fuck. _What the fuck?_

It’s like someone pours a bucket of ice cold water on him. He looks down at the bill he’s holding, still laced with white power and the mirror covered in coke that somehow ended up in front of him and he blanches. 

He drops the dollar bill, not even remembering having grabbed it. He stares down at the mirror in front of him and sees his reflection in it. He doesn’t recognize the person staring back at him. Who _was_ he? There was no way he was about to do what he was just about to do. There’s no way. He would never.

_But you almost did_ , a voice in the back of his head whispers at him. He jumps up from the booth so quickly that everyone give him a confused look. 

“Are you okay, man?”

“Yeah,” he says, voice shaky, “I gotta go.” 

He all but runs out of the club, flagging down the first cab he can find. He doesn’t remember where he tells the driver to drop him off at, he doesn’t remember even giving him an address. He doesn’t really take in where he’s going until he’s staring at a young woman in a uniform who’s giving him a bored look. 

“I need a ticket on your next flight to Riverdale,” is what he tells her. 

The lady pops her gum as she types some stuff into a computer before handing him over a ticket. 

“You’re in luck, sweets. Your plane leaves in an hour and a half. Last minute plans?” She asks.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I’m going home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you guys were pretty upset at the beginning, huh? 
> 
> Up next: Juggie goes to Riverdale. Archie is happy. Veronica is scheming. Reggie is NOT having his shit. AND we get a flashback of the day (AND THE REASON WHY) Betty left him. See you tomorrow. ;) 
> 
> As always, come talk to me on [tumblr](http://camelotskingz.tumblr.com). <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is up a day late and I'm SO sorry, things got kind of hectic.   
> But alas, here we are! The reason why they broke up.   
> See you guys at the end. ;) OH! Please read the author's note at the end.

Riverdale is Riverdale. It’s a timeless town, one that seems to never change. Jughead never realized just how much he loved that concept. 

Everything looks exactly the same as it had when he left five years ago. His first stop isn’t to a hotel or to Archie’s or his dad’s. It’s to Pop Tate’s. 

Pop Tate’s is a place he spent way too many afternoons and evenings with his best friends back in the day. It’s a place he went when he needed a little time to get away. It was a safe place for him, somewhere he always felt comfortable. 

As soon as he walks in, he feels at home. He feels like he’s finally somewhere he belongs. 

Pop Tate is standing behind the counter and as soon as he sees Jughead walk inside, his eyes light up in disbelief. 

“Well, if it isn’t my best customer,” he says with a smile. “Jughead Jones, how have you been?” 

“I’ve been better,” he answers truthfully, taking a seat at the counter. “I missed home.”

“Home missed you. What can I get you?”

“A burger and a chocolate milkshake would be great.”

“You got it!” Pop writes the order up and gives it to a young boy in a uniform. “How was California? Your book doing well?” 

“California was exactly how you’d expect it to be. Did you read my book?”

“I did,” Pop confirms. “It’s a beautiful thing, what you and Betty Cooper had. I still remember when you two would come on dates over here. It was always nice to see you two laughing in the back. It was like nothing else in the world existed when you two were together.” He gives Jughead a regretful look. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out.” 

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Me too.” 

He knew this would happen. He wrote a whole novel on his failed romance with Betty, it’s what he’s going to be known for for the rest of his life. He knew people would bring it up as soon as he came back home. He’d been expecting it, he just wasn’t prepared to deal with it so soon. 

He finishes his burger and milkshake and gathers himself up before going to the one place that he’s been missing more than anything. 

He knows that Archie and Veronica are living together now. Archie had mentioned that they’d gotten an apartment over at Pembrooke, where Veronica used to live in high school. Her parents had long since moved back to New York, but apparently she loved Riverdale (and Archie) so much that she decided to stay. 

_”Jug,”_ Archie greets as he answers his phone. _”I wasn’t expecting you to call so soon.”_

“Remember how you told me that you and Veronica had a spare room if I ever wanted to come home?”

_”Yeah?”_ Archie asks, sounding a bit confused. 

“Do you still have it?” 

_”Jughead, what’s up? Where are you?”_

“I don’t want to sound like some kind of cliche novel, but I may or may not be outside.” There’s a crashing sound and Archie hangs up the phone. Jughead looks at his cell in confusion and he’s about to call back when he sees Archie come running out of the building. 

He’s forgotten just how strong his best friend is, but he’s reminded whenever the full force that is Archie Andrews comes running right towards him, engulfing him in a tight hug. 

“Hello to you, too,” Jughead laughs but it comes out kind of broken because he really can’t breathe with how hard Archie’s squeezing him. “Okay,” he taps Archie on the back, “little too tight there, buddy.”

“Sorry,” Archie says as he pulls away, “it’s just been so long.” 

“Yeah, about nearly five years too long.” 

“You look different,” Archie observes with a smile. “You don’t look so thin anymore. Have you been working out?”

“Shut the hell up,” Jughead snorts. 

“No seriously! You didn’t even feel as fragile as you did before,” he says as he squeezes Jughead’s arms.

Jughead just rolls his eyes. Reggie may or may not have made him join a gym with him, but like hell Jughead’s going to inform Archie of that. The redhead would never let him live it down.

“Well, come on up! Ronnie will be back soon! She’s just out shopping with…” Archie suddenly trails off, giving Jughead a wary look. 

“You can say her name,” he says with an eye roll as he follows Archie to the elevator. “She’s out shopping with _Betty_.” 

“Look, man. I don’t want to pry, but what happened?” 

He knows that Archie’s asking why he didn’t go to see her, but truth be told he doesn’t even really know himself. 

“It’s just not worth it,” he answers lazily. 

“Betty’s not worth it?” Archie asks, shocked and bit mad. He opens the door to the apartment and Jughead trails in behind him.

“No, you idiot, the whole thing isn’t worth it.” He finds that it’s a lot easier to talk to Archie in person than it is over a phone. “It’s not worth it to see her, talk to her, feel whatever it is that I’m going to feel, only to have to walk away from her again. What did she even want to talk about? Do I have a kid starting preschool or something?” As soon as he says the words he whirls around and fixes Archie with a glare. “Oh my fucking… Do I have a kid, Archie?” 

“What?” Archie says with wide eyes. “No! No, Jesus Christ. We would have made Betty go to Los Angeles years ago if she was carrying your spawn—.”

“Excuse me? _Spawn?_ ”

“—but no, you don’t have any kids.” Archie gives him a sad look. “Sorry.” Jughead just nods. 

It’s no secret that he and Betty had been trying to have a kid for a while, but with no luck. They’d been young, only twenty-one, but it was something they’d both wanted for so long. They had already been living with each other by this point, but they weren’t married or even engaged. They’d both agreed that marriage was something they could wait on, it wasn’t something they absolutely needed to be. They both had certain views on marriage and while they were certain about each other, they weren’t certain marriage was something they needed to validate their relationship. 

And it wasn’t a big deal. Jughead knew Betty was it for him. He didn’t need anything to validate that for him. He was sure of it. So he tried to give Betty everything and anything she ever wanted from him, including a kid. No matter how hard they tried, it just seemed to be the one thing he couldn’t give her. 

“So why did she go?”

“You could have asked her yourself,” Archie reminds him. “It’s not my business to tell you that. You’re my best friend but so is she. I’m not going to disrespect her trust like that.” 

“You just expect me to go talk to her?” The idea seems completely insane to him. He’s starting to wonder if he’s the only one who thinks so.

“Yes, that’s exactly what we expect.” 

Archie and Jughead both jump up from where they had been sitting in the kitchen. 

Veronica Lodge stands in front of them, bags covering her arms, and a fixed glare on her face. It’s weird, even though she’s glaring at him, she’s also smiling at Jughead. She looks kind of crazy and he feels scared.

“You know it’s a good thing Betty had to go help her mom out with something,” Veronica says as she drops all the bags to the floor, “because I invited her over for lunch. Of course that was before I knew we were having guests.”

“What’s with the cold shoulder, V?” Jughead asks with a sneer. “You were more than happy to talk to me the other day on the phone.” 

“That was before you sent my best friend home in tears, you brooding sad sack!” 

_Wait what?_ Before he can ask her about that statement, Veronica lurches forward and hits Jughead in the arm with her purse. 

“Ow! What the hell do you carry in there?”

“Lets see if you can find out,” she picks up her arm to hit him again, but Archie runs over to her and pulls her away.

“Hey! Let’s all calm down, okay?” 

“Why are you here, Jughead?” Veronica asks with a sigh, not sounding as mad anymore. “Seriously. You literally came home like the day after she gets back. Why? That’s not logical.”

“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. Why is he here?

“Are you just that dramatic?” She asks. 

“Obviously,” he hisses under his breath. “Can you just tell me what she was doing in Los Angeles?” 

“Why didn’t you ask her?” Veronica says sarcastically. “Oh wait, that’s right. You totally ignored my advice and instead of talking to her, you just blew her off and did whatever it is that you do. Probably brood.”

“Veronica,” Archie warns. 

“I deserved to blow her off!” Jughead yells, finally at his breaking point. “She blew me off for five years! Why is it that she’s allowed to break my heart and it’s fine, but the second she decides to come back around I’m supposed to forgive her and talk to her and work things out or whatever it is she wants? Fuck that! I’m allowed to be mad, Veronica! Because guess what? I am mad. I’m _furious_. That doesn’t just go away because she decides to show up to Los Angeles!”

“You can’t be mad forever, Jug,” Veronica says, but it’s softer now, like she’s trying to understand where he’s coming from. He doesn’t think she’ll ever understand, though. She’s always always had trustworthy Archie who’s been by her side through thick and thin. She’s never been in Jughead’s place and he doubts she ever will be. 

“Can’t I?” 

“No,” she says as she walks over to him and places her hand over his. He hadn’t even known that his hands were curled into fists, but he slowly relaxes them at her touch. “I know she hurt you. I know that there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to forgive her, and there’s even a smaller part of you that might never forgive her, but you do still love her, Jughead. As much as you don’t want to, you do. Talk to her; if not for her then for yourself.” 

He hates how simple she makes it sound. To her it probably is simple. 

“I don’t even know where to find her,” he says, although he doesn’t know why he tries. Veronica’s frown turns into a smirk. 

“I do! She’s living over at her mom’s still. She moved back in like two years ago. Her mom’s pretty lonely these days with Polly living in New York and her dad…” 

“Yeah,” Jughead says. “I don’t know. Maybe. I just need some time to think, okay?”

“You can have all the time you need,” Veronica says. “Our home is your home! Do you plan on staying here for long?” He notices her mood change now that he’s agreed to maybe talk to Betty and he would laugh, if the whole situation weren’t so messed up.

“I don’t really know. This whole trip was kind of a surprise.” 

“Speaking of that,” Archie says, “where are your bags? Shouldn’t you a least have one suitcase?” 

“Like I said, it was a surprise.” 

“We can go shopping tomorrow,” Veronica says. “You can buy me something, you know since you’re the famous author. I’m guessing that means you have money.” 

“Veronica,” Archie groans. 

“What?” She smiles. “I’m just saying.” 

“I’m not going shopping,” Jughead snorts. “I’ll ask my agent if he can send some of my stuff over and until then…” 

“Until then we can go shopping! Stop trying to get out of it.” 

“Dude, it’s so weird to hear you say you have an agent,” Archie laughs. Jughead nods along before he remembers that he has an agent that he just ditched at a night club. 

“Oh, crap,” he groans. “I got to make a call.” 

 

_”What do you mean you’re in Riverdale? Are you insane?”_

Jughead has been trying to calm Reggie down for the past five minutes, but it isn’t working. If anything he thinks he’s just working the other man up. 

“Reg, it’s not that serious—.”

_“It’s incredibly serious! I know we’re besties, whatever, but I’m also you’re agent, Jughead. You have to tell me when you’re doing stuff like this!”_

“Reg—.”

_“I’m ripping off my friendship bracelet right now, as we speak! Why do you want to go hang out with a bunch of small town people anyways?”_

“As opposed to your drugged out friends?” 

Reggie groans. _”Oh come on, Jug. I didn’t really even know them. How was I supposed to know they’d offer you cocaine?”_

“That’s just it, Reggie. I’m tired of hanging out with people I barely know. I want to be with friends. I want to be home.” 

_”So you’re moving back to Riverdale?”_

Jughead pauses. It wasn’t even something he had considered. 

_”Does this have anything to do with your ex coming over here?”_

Jughead takes a deep breath. “It’s complicated.” 

_”What’s complicated about it? She broke your heart. You need to move on, Jug.”_

“Don’t you think I’ve tried? I can’t. I need to talk to her, find out what she wanted and then after that we’ll see about moving on.”

_”Whatever,”_ Reggie says but he still sounds upset. _”Just keep me up to date and be careful, Jug.”_

They hang up and Jughead looks around the spare bedroom, mainly the large bed. He hasn’t really slept. He couldn’t get comfortable on the plane and he’s exhausted. He takes off his shoes and lays down on the bed. He’ll sleep first and when he wakes up then he’ll make a game plan.

 

His game plan is pretty simple:   
\- Eat breakfast.  
\- Find an outfit.   
\- Talk to Betty. 

Veronica got them all breakfast from some new cafe that had opened up during Jughead’s absence. It was decent. He enjoyed Pop’s breakfast platters a lot more, but the bagel was fresh so he wouldn’t complain. He had thrown his jeans in the washer and Archie lent him an old shirt. His outfit was golden and so that left one thing left on his list. 

Veronica had offered to have her driver take him over to the Cooper’s but he turned her down. He needed the walk. A car ride would make him get to Betty’s way too fast and he needed time to calm his nerves down, to get in a good mindset. If he talked to Betty while his nerves were all worked up then nothing good would come out of the conversation. It was the exact opposite of what he wanted. 

The weather is nice outside. The sun is out but there’s a nice breeze so it isn’t a nightmare to walk in. It’s the afternoon so he sees a few people out and about. None of them recognize him and he doesn’t recognize any of them so it’s fine. 

Somewhere along his walk, his mind goes back to the day that changed everything; the day that he had tried so hard to forget about. He’s tried so hard to block it from his mind, but he still remembers everything in vivid detail. 

_Betty was working late over at the Register with her mom. Things were a bit much these days, ever since the death of her father. Her mom was a mess, as expected, and Betty was doing her best to try and keep everything together. Jughead saw the way it was taking a toll on her, and he couldn’t help but feel an outrageous amount of respect for his girlfriend. He knew Hal’s death was hard on her too, but she put her grief to the side in order to help her mother. It was one of the many reasons why he loved her._

_He was sitting at his desk in the “study”. Study was just a fancy name for the small, extra room in their apartment that was too tiny for a bedroom so they made it into a workspace for the both of them._

_Jughead was lost in his own thoughts, ink spilling out onto paper as all the thoughts in his mind came to life in front of him. He’d been working on this book of his for a while now. No one had read it and no one knew what it was about, not even Betty. It was something he’d been working on for a while now, something he was excited to share with the world. But not yet. Not until it was complete._

_He hears the front door open and close and he shuffles all his papers together and places them to the side, realizing that Betty is home._

_She’s standing in the kitchen, looking through the fridge, when he finally goes over to her._

_“Hey, you,” he whispers as he hugs her from behind and places a kiss onto her temple. Betty sighs and places her hands over his, squeezing them._

_“Hi,” she breathes out before turning around in his arms and facing him. She’s smiling at him and he admires her ability to be able to smile even when he knows she doesn’t want to._

_“How was today?”_

_“Fine, mom was having a good day today. We got a lot done.” She pulls away from Jughead and looks towards the fridge. “I’m just really hungry.” She whispers the words and Jughead’s heart breaks with how sad and broken she sounds. She’s strong and she pretends for the world, but he sees right through her. He sees how she’s barely holding on these days. He knows that she’s going to break soon, but he’ll be there when she does._

_“I made you dinner, babe. Come on,” he pulls her hands away from the handle and turns her around, leading her towards the table in the corner. “I made some pork chops.” He’d left it in the microwave for her so it would stay warm, but he heats it up a little longer just in case._

_When he places it in front of her, she gives him a small smile._

_“Thank you,” she says softly. She eats her dinner in silence and Jughead doesn’t bother her with small talk. He’s been with her long enough that he knows when she just needs some company, not conversation. So that’s what he does. He sits with her and reads a book that Veronica bought him from some book fair she went to earlier in the month._

_“I talked to Polly,” she says once she’s done. “She was thinking of coming to stay with mom for a little bit.”_

_“That sounds like a good idea,” he says as he puts his book down. “But you know, if you want to go stay with your mom you can, Betty.”_

_“I want to be here,” she argues, “with you.”_

_“She can always stay with us.”_

_Betty laughs, the first real laugh he’s heard from her all day. “Could you imagine that? She loves you, Juggie, but I think that might be too much.”_

_Jughead smiles and nods in agreement. “Well, if you decide you need to spend a little time with her then you do it, okay?”_

_“Okay,” she agrees and stands up to put her plate away. She stands in front of him and leans down to kiss him softly. “I need to go get some stuff from the study for a piece I’m writing. You can read while I work?”_

_“I’ll be here waiting,” he says as he picks his book back up._

_He’s so into his chapter that he doesn’t realize that’s Betty’s been gone for a while._

_“Betts?” He calls out into the house, but he doesn’t get a response. Feeling nervous, he places his book back onto the table after marking his place. He makes his way over to the study and is immediately taken aback by what he sees._

_Betty is sitting there in the rolling chair, face blank as she reads over the very words that Jughead had been writing earlier that day. Papers are scattered across the desk and he wonders just how much she’s read._

_“You weren’t supposed to see that yet,” he says gently, trying to grasp what her reaction is._

_“What is this?” She says even as her eyes scan the papers rapidly._

_“Betty?” He questions. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but the blank stare and exasperated voice she gives him is definitely not it._

_“This is… our lives?”_

_“I mean, yeah. Kind of.”_

_“No,” she says, hard, “not kind of. It is. Jughead, why did you write this?”_

_“What?” He says, taken off guard. “I.. I—.” He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, but it doesn’t matter because she cuts him off before he can get it out._

_“Jughead, this is our entire lives from before we even got together. I don’t understand.”_

_“It’s a book I was working on,” he comes clean._

_“A book?” She yelps, standing up from the chair. “Why would you write a book on us? On my life?”_

_“It’s not just your life, Betty. It’s my life too.”_

_“Jughead, you’ve literally written down everything. Every single detail about us. Juggie, you wrote about my father’s_ death. _Why would you write about that in a book?”_

_He stands there, shellshocked and not knowing what to say at all._

_“You were going to what? Publish this and make money off of it? Make money off of the very thing that’s tearing my family apart at this moment? My mom can barely take care of herself and you’re writing about it in a book!”_

_“It’s not like that, Betty!”_

_“Yes it is! It’s exactly like that!”_

_“Did you read it?” He asks._

_“No, does it look like I had time to read it? I skimmed through a few pages that just happened to be you talking about my father’s death!”_

_“Betty…” he whispers, reaching out for her._

_“What else were you going to write down?” She snaps at him, backing away from his grasp. “About how I can’t get pregnant?”_

_“Betty, what?” He gasps out, heart shattering. This is it. She’s breaking and while he’s definitely here for it, it’s all his fault._

_“I’ve been trying so hard to start a family with you and do you know how much it hurts every time I take a test just to have to read out negative? I’m trying to give you a family, Jughead, but you probably don’t even want that, right? Because a sob story sells better, doesn’t it?”_

_Jughead stares at her, tears forming in his eyes as her words sink into his brain. It’s so cruel and something he’d never expected her to tell him, but she just did._

_“Betty, how could you even say that?”_

_“How could you write about all of this? Was our whole relationship just some way to make you money? To get you out of a small town and give you fame? Was it all just a story to you?”_

_“I’ll throw it away!” He yells out, panicked and scared at the idea of losing her. “I’ll throw it in a fucking fireplace if that makes you feel any better. No one will ever read it.”_

_“No,” she sniffs, standing up straight and walking out of the room. “Publish it. Publish it and dedicate it to me. So that way when you’re rich and famous, every time you open that book up you’ll remember whose tragic life got you there.”_

_“Betty, can you please listen to me?” He cries out as he reaches out and grabs onto her hand. “It’s not like that. You know it’s not like that. I love you,” he pleads._

_“You just loved a good story more,” she says with finality before ripping her hand out of his and walking through the front door._

_“Betty!” He shouts. “Elizabeth!”_

_He’s met with the sound of a door slamming in his face._

 

The Cooper’s house looks exactly the same. He sees it and he’s reminded of all the times Betty used to sneak him in, giggling and shushing him when he so much as breathed too loudly. He’s reminded of family dinners and watching football with her father on Sunday nights. Jughead didn’t care at all for the sport, but Hal did. He remembers helping Alice with her work on the Register. He remembers losing his virginity in Betty’s bed that was a little too creaky one night when her parents were out of town. 

Everything is exactly the same yet it’s never been more different and foreign to him. 

He walks up to the front door. Dragging this out won’t do any good. He needs to get this over with. He can do it. Just one conversation, that’s all he needs.

His hand is shaking as he reaches out for the doorbell and presses it. He steps back and takes a deep breath, wringing his hands together. 

It isn’t even five seconds before the front door opens. 

Alice Cooper stands tall and strong in front of him. She looks good, much better than when he had left. She looks taken aback for a second before she smiles at him.

“Jughead Jones, I never thought I’d see you on my front porch again.” 

“I live to surprise you,” he says. It’s a joke and it just slipped from his mouth. He’s shocked to see that talking to Alice is still just like talking to his mom. That’s what she’d always been to him and it’s just as easy to talk to her in person as it was with Archie. 

“I’ve missed you,” she says. “Although I suspect you’re not here for me.” 

“I could be,” he tells her and she laughs, making room for him to walk inside the house. 

“I’ll get Betty, she’s in the kitchen. How did you know she was back home?” 

“Veronica,” he answers and Alice nods. “Alice?” He calls out as she retreats from him. She turns back around and gives him a questioning look. “I missed you too.” She doesn’t say anything, she just smiles. 

Jughead makes his way to the living room and looks at all the pictures. They’re the exact same pictures that have been there. He’s shocked to see that there’s even a picture of him and Betty from senior prom still perched up on the wall. He reaches out for it and traces over her face with his fingertips. 

“Mom wouldn’t take it down no matter how many times I asked her to.”

He jumps up and turns around. Betty stands in front of him, a gentle smile on her face.

“I’m kind of glad she didn’t now,” she says with a soft laugh. 

“We need to talk,” Jughead says, no emotion behind his voice but then again he doesn’t really know how he feels right now. He wonders if he’ll ever start to feel anything around Betty again. 

She gestures for him to sit in the recliner as she takes a seat on the love seat. 

“Let me go first,” she tells him. “There’s a few things you deserve to hear from me.” 

Jughead nods and then he waits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEFORE YOU GUYS COME AT ME FOR THIS REASON!
> 
> Look at things from Betty's point of view. She's still in the early stages of her father's death, she hasn't even properly broken down over it, like Jughead says, and it was really only a matter of time. She comes home from work and from helping her mom out (who's a mess over the death) and the first thing she sees when she finds the book is Jughead writing about her father's death. She feels betrayed and she breaks down and acts a little irrationally, but I'm not blaming her. It's her father's death and the fact that she's having a hard time getting pregnant that all come crashing down on her at the wrong time.
> 
> A lot of you had some really good, SAD AS HELL, guesses as to what what down between them but me and @itstenafterfour over on Tumblr discussed all the possible reasons and this one was the best in our opinion. It's the one that made most sense when thinking about these two and what would really make Betty leave him. 
> 
> Hope you guys liked it and as always, come yell at me on [tumblr](http://camelotskingz.tumblr.com).


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys didn't think the angst would be ending now. These next chapters are going to be ROUGH.  
> I'm expecting to make maybe three more chapters plus an epilogue.  
> Anyways this chapter is in Betty's POV and guys, it's kinda bad. (Bad as in I had a hard time writing it and bad as in it's also really sad.)  
> ENJOY!

“I could tell you I’m sorry,” Betty says as her eyes shift around the room. She can’t make eye contact with Jughead for some reason. “But I know that wouldn’t do any good.”

“So don’t tell me you’re sorry,” he says. 

She hates the way his voice sounds so emotionless, even his face is expressionless. She’s never really seen him like this, at least not with her, and she has to wonder if she’s really the one who did this to him, but she already knows the answer. Of course she is.

“What I want to tell you is that I was wrong. I was wrong to lash out at you that night. I was wrong to tell you all of the horrible things I did and I was wrong to walk out on you.” 

“Betty,” he sighs and she finally looks at him. Their eyes connect and immediately she feels all the things she used to feel when she would look into them; love, comfort, hope. Although she doesn’t know if he sees the same things. “Why did you go to Los Angeles? Why now? After all these years, why couldn’t you just leave things alone?”

It hurts that he wishes she would have stayed away, but she’s sure she deserves it. 

“I guess it kind of started with Veronica…”

_If one word could describe Betty Cooper’s life it would probably be: tragic. Okay, that’s a bit dramatic. Messy is a better one, or even just sad, both of those would work good._

_Granted she didn’t start thinking about her life like this until recently, until he left. She couldn’t blame him though, she was the one who practically packed up his bags and told him to get the hell out of Riverdale. She doesn’t know what she was expecting when she left him, but she never really thought he’d actually leave Riverdale._

_Archie had come to her two days before Jughead was supposed to leave, begging her to talk to him. Because if she didn’t talk to him then this was it, Jughead would be gone and they’d be done._

_She just told Archie that they’d been done the second he decided to write a book about her father’s death._

_Realistically Betty understood now that Jughead hadn’t just been writing about her dad’s death, but it didn’t really matter anymore. The fact remained that he went behind her back to write about her life, personal things that people didn’t need to know were probably written across those pages. It wasn’t something she could get past. So she didn’t._

_She spent the four years after her break up trying to get her mom in a better place. It took some time, but Alice Cooper was a strong woman and not before long, she watched as her mom was able to get herself up in the mornings and make breakfast. She watched as the light began to return to her mom’s eyes and as the spark of creativity came back to her writing._

_For four years she tried to move on from Jughead Jones desperately but she couldn’t. Sometimes she wondered if she actually wanted to. If she really wanted to then wouldn’t she have by now? Sure, she and Jughead had been together since they were fifteen, but that didn’t mean she would never be able to move on… did it?_

_She spent her days actively avoiding bookstores and TV interviews, anything that might accidentally make her have to face Jughead. She knew it was kind of immature, but it was fine. She was coping. She had wondered if Jughead would actually publish the book, a part of her wanted him to but another part was mad that he did. Veronica had told her that Archie talked him into it, though. Apparently it had worked out perfectly for him. Kudos._

_It’s Christmas when Veronica shows up to her house with a rectangular wrapped present. When she opens it, she looks at her best friend with a mixture of outrage and betrayal on her face._

_“I know you don’t want to and I know you’ll probably hate me for giving it to you, but you need to read this. It’s been five years, B. If you’re not over him by now then I don’t think you ever will be. You need to read this. Just read it and if you still feel the same way after, if you still swear you hate him, then fine. I’ll let it go and I’ll never bring him up again, but please. Just read this. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”_

_Betty didn’t say anything. She just watched as Veronica walked out of her house and then she fixed her gaze onto the book in front of her. It’s an average sized novel, but for some reason it feels extremely heavy in her hands._

_She contemplates tossing it into the fireplace behind her and letting it burn. But she doesn’t._

_Instead, with shaky hands, she opens the book slowly. The spine creaks under her hands and already she can feel her heart rate spike._

_Right there, in front of her, is the dedication mocking her._

__To B.C. I Still Love You.

_She closes her eyes and tilts her head back. A whole new kind of pain rushes through her as she realizes that Jughead had listened to the hateful, ugly words she yelled at him all those years ago._

_“Publish it and dedicate it to me. So that way when you’re rich and famous, every time you open that book up you’ll remember whose tragic life got you there.”_

_The words are still fresh in her mind. She’s not sure if she’ll ever forget that day and all the things she said. She wants to toss the book more than ever now, but she can’t. She needs to do this. If not for herself then for Veronica’s wishes._

_She spends all day and night reading the book. She reads the same paragraphs over and over countless times before finally finishing it. By the time she closes it, she’s crying._

_The words on the pages are beautiful. They are the sweetest, most heartfelt words a person could say. This whole book is a dedication to the love and affection Jughead had felt for her. It’s raw and pure and honest. It’s their life story and she hates the ending. She hates that she’s the one who created the ending. Their ending should have been something epic that could rival even the greatest novels of all time, but it isn’t. It’s tragic, the kind of ending that makes you never want to find love._

_When she was a little girl, her mom would read her stories about princesses and princes falling in love and living happily ever after. She always wanted a story like that and she had it. She had that kind of love with Jughead and then she let it go. She let it go because she was mad and angry at the world and how it was treating her. She was mad at everything and she took it out on Jughead. Jughead, who had done nothing except be there for her from the very first day. Jughead, who had only ever tried to show her just how much he loved her._

_“Betty?” Her mom asks. “Are you okay?” Warm arms hug her in comfort and for the first time in a long time, Betty cries in her mom’s lap._

_“I made a huge mistake, mom,” she sobs out._

_She doesn’t have to say what the mistake is. The book on her lap does all the talking._

_“Oh, Betty,” her mom sighs as she runs her hands through her hair. “He loved you so much. You can fix this.”_

_Can she? She’s not so sure this time._

_Veronica is the one who talks her into it. She says that Betty has to at least try before giving up completely. It’s an insane idea, she knows it, but it could also be the first step to fixing things between them. She knows she has a long shot. It’s been five years. Jughead could have a girlfriend or even a wife. He could have a family of his own over there in Los Angeles for all Betty knows, but she supposes that’s what this trip is for; to find out._

_She takes the book with her. If her plan goes correctly then she’ll attend a book signing of Jughead’s. It’s probably not the ideal meeting for them, but it’s the only place she knows to start at._

_She’s sitting in the terminal with the book on her lap, staring out into the airport and watching as people board and exit their flights._

_“I loved that book,” a voice speaks up from next to her. It belongs to an old lady with gray hair and kind brown eyes. “It was such a beautiful love story. I heard it’s based on his actual hometown girlfriend.” The lady clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “Oh, that girl must be beating herself up now for leaving him.”_

_Betty starts crying._

_She can’t help it. She’s been crying ever since she picked up the damn book and realized what an idiot she was. She knows that she made a mistake letting him go, she’s aware that she’s the dumbest person to walk the earth. She wishes she could take it all back, but she can’t and that’s what hurts the most. She doesn’t even know if things with Jughead will work out. If she goes to L.A. and it turns out that he doesn’t actually want her back then she might literally fall apart. She misses Jughead. She misses him so much that it physically hurts her. She had tried for so long to deny the ache she had felt for him, but she couldn’t do it anymore. She was tired of pretending._

_“Would you believe me if I told you I was the girl?” She sniffles. “Would you believe me if I told you I left him?”_

_The old lady’s eyes widen. “Oh, dear. Are you really her?”_

_“Yeah,” she nods, still crying. “I wish I wasn’t and I wish I never had, but I did. I did and now all I have is this stupid book dedication.”_

_“You still love him,” the lady says._

_“I do. I don’t think I ever stopped.”_

_“Then get him back,” she says fiercely. “The words written in that book are no joke. Those are the words of a boy who is so in love that he’d do anything for the woman. I wouldn’t give up just yet.”_

_“What if he doesn’t love me anymore? What if I’m too late?” She’s voicing all her concerns to a random lady she doesn’t know, but it still feels so good._

_“Oh, child,” the lady chuckles, “there is no such thing as too late. If it’s true love, then it’ll wait. What’s meant to be will always come back. Now dry your eyes and tell me about your plan.”_

_Betty laughs and pats her eyes with her jacket sleeve before she begins talking._

_She sits next to a teenage girl on the flight. Her book is still on her lap and the girl notices._

_“I can’t believe she left him in the end,” the girl says to her softly. Betty doesn’t cry this time. Instead she just smiles._

_“I bet you she’ll go back and fight for him,” is what she says to the girl before looking out of the airplane window. “If it’s meant to be then it’ll come back. And they were meant to be.”_

 

Jughead stays quiet. It’s okay, she tells herself. She hadn’t expected him to jump into her arms afterwards or to even say anything at all. 

“Betty…” he says before cutting himself off and shaking his head. 

“I know it’s a lot,” she rushes out to say. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I needed you to know everything. You need to know that I still love you, Juggie. If you don’t love me then I understand, I won’t bother you again but I just needed you to know.” 

“What do you expect me to say to this?” He asks, running a hand over his face in frustration. “I was ready to have a family with you and you just left me, Elizabeth. You left me without even letting me try to defend myself. I understand why you were upset, believe me I do, but you lashed out at me and left before I could even try to change your mind. Did I mean so little to you?”

“No!” She exclaims in disbelief. “I don’t know how to explain how I was feeling to you. I think a small part of me just wanted to fight with you. I wanted to have someone to be angry at and to feel what I was feeling.”

“That’s fucked up.” 

“I know. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. I ruined both of our happinesses just because I was mad at the world and I’ll never forgive myself for it.” 

Jughead stands up from the chair and looks down at her. 

“You didn’t deserve what you were going through, but I didn’t deserve what you put me through either. I just wanted to be there for you.” He pauses. “I can’t forgive you, Betty. I want to, God, I want to forgive you. I want to tell you it’s okay and kiss you and make love to you to make up for all these years.” 

“Then do it,” she cries, tears pooling over from her eyes.

“I can’t!” He yells out. “I can’t do any of that because every time I look at you all I can think of is the words you told me that night. I look at you and I get so mad I want to hit something, I want to go crazy. Do you see what you’ve done to me?” 

Her heart breaks all over again at his words and she stays sitting there, crying. 

“You make me so mad!” He says as he gets on his knees in front of her and places his hands on her shoulders, making her look at him. “You leave me and then come back into my life out of nowhere and tell me you love me? Why are you doing this to me? Why are you trying to hurt me?”

“I’m not, Juggie!” 

“But you are!” And then a single tear rolls from his eyes. “My life was fine without you. I was fine. I was finally starting to feel okay. You’ve just ruined all of that.” He leans back onto his ankles, pulling his hands away from her. “I love you so much and I want you so bad, but I can’t trust you. You hurt me in a way that no one ever has before and I can’t go through that again.” 

“You won’t have to,” she tries to promise. 

“You don’t know that. I love you, Betty Cooper, but I can’t be with you.” 

He stands up and once Betty sees that he’s leaving, she jumps up and runs to him. 

“Jughead, wait!” She grabs onto his arm and stops him. “I love you. I’ve always loved you,” she cries to him. 

He pauses, stares deep into her eyes and then pulls his arm away from her gently. 

“I’m sure you do. You just didn’t love me when it mattered.” 

And then he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How sick of my cliffhangers are you guys? Wanna come yell at me? [I'm all for it.](http://camelotskingz.tumblr.com) ;)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this chapter went in an entirely different direction than it was supposed to.... I'm not even joking. You guys are about to be shook.

Veronica and Archie don’t ask him anything when he comes back to their house. The look on his face must say it all, because they just watch him silently as he walks over to the guest bedroom and closes the door quietly behind himself. 

His thoughts are a mess. On one hand, he can understand wholeheartedly why Betty left him that day. It all makes sense and he can’t really hold any of it against her and he kind of doesn’t. On the other hand though, none of it changes anything. He can still remember the way his heart had shattered as she left him without even giving him the chance to defend himself. Had their relationship meant so little to her? Had _he_ meant so little to her? He feels like he had even more questions now, but he didn’t ask her any of them. He had to get out of her house as soon as possible. He was scared that if he stayed any longer, he would do something stupid like forgive her. 

He spends the entire day locked away in the guest bedroom. He doesn’t do anything. He just stays in bed, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about everything and nothing all at the same time. He thinks about what his life would be like right now if Betty had never left him. It’s a beautiful picture painted in his head, the life he had always dreamed of. He tries to think of where his life will go from here. Does he just leave and go back to California? Will everything go back to how it used to be? He thinks that he might have wanted things to go back to how they used to be, but then he thinks of how much he had missed Riverdale and Archie and he can’t picture going back. Not yet at least. 

It’s pretty late when there’s a soft knock at his door. He doesn’t say anything, but Archie walks in anyways and sits over on the end of his bed. 

“Ronnie’s birthday is in two days,” he tells Jughead. “We’re having dinner here and she wants you to be there and so do I.”

“Okay.”

“Betty will be there too.” 

Of course she will be, Jughead thinks sourly to himself. Because the world is out to get him and he can never just catch a break. 

“Okay,” he says again. 

“If you can’t be with her again then maybe just try being friends,” Archie tells him, making Jughead think that he must know all about their conversation. 

The idea is probably a good and mature one, but to Jughead it sounds absolutely ludicrous. To be just friends with Betty Cooper would be like going back to the days of high school when he pined over her relentlessly. He doesn’t know if can go back to that or if he even wants to. No matter how much he doesn’t want to love her anymore, he still does and being friends with her would probably kill him. It won’t work, he wants to tell Archie. Instead he just nods. 

Archie just gives him a forced smile before patting his leg and walking out of the room. Jughead turns on his side and closes his eyes, trying to sleep even though he knows he probably won’t. 

 

Veronica’s dinner party comes by quickly just like Jughead had feared. It always seems like things tend to happen quicker when you don’t want them to. 

She had told him to dress nicely, which he didn’t understand at all. It was just a dinner at her own apartment, but he listened to her words either way which was why he was currently trying to tie his tie in the bathroom. He’d never really mastered how to tie one before and he was growing more and more frustrated as he tried and failed. 

“You never could tie your own ties,” a gentle voice speaks up from behind him. He looks into the mirror and sees Betty standing in the bathroom doorway. She looks radiant in a yellow cocktail dress with her hair falling over her shoulders. “Need some help?” 

He’s about to tell her no, that he’ll manage. Instead he just nods. She looks surprised for a moment before she walks towards him, her heels clicking against the tile, and grabs ahold of the damn thing. 

“Remember when we were late to graduation because neither of us knew how to tie one?” She asks him as she begins. She’s so close to him that he can smell her perfume. It’s the same one she’s always worn and it reminds him of the ocean breeze. It hits him hard, a feeling of nostalgia waving over him both over the smell and over her question. 

“You had to watch a tutorial on YouTube,” he replies in a whisper. Betty chuckles. 

“Good thing I did, because I was the one who had to tie them for you all the time after that.” She tugs on it and then lets go, patting his chest softly once she’s done. “Okay, you’re all set.” They stand there for a few seconds in silence, just looking into each other’s eyes before she clears her throat and darts her eyes away. “Okay, well I should probably go help Veronica set up.” 

He nods, but as soon as she turns away from him and starts to walk away, he calls out for her. She turns back around and looks at him in question. 

“I don’t want to hate you,” he says. 

“Do you hate me?” She asks and then bites her lip, letting him know that she’s worried about his answer. 

“I don’t know,” he says truthfully. “I think I used to, but now I don’t really know anymore. I don’t want to though. Despite everything, you were always my best friend and I just want all of this to end. The anger, the hurt; I want it to stop.” 

“Do you think being friends with me will make it stop?” She asks, a sad smile on her lips. 

“Maybe, maybe not.” 

“One step forward?” She asks him. 

“One step forward.” 

She nods and turns to walk out of the restroom. He doesn’t know what just happened, his heart feels a lot heavier than it did before but it doesn’t feel so broken anymore. He wonders if Archie’s right. Maybe this can be a good thing. He can be her friend. It’s not starting over, it feels like a step back, but maybe the only way to go forward is by going backwards. 

 

The dinner is very ordinary. There’s a few people that Jughead doesn’t know, people that Veronica met in college, but he doesn’t care to meet them either. He sits next to Betty at the table and it’s not as awkward as he had thought it would be. She engages in small, polite conversation with him. It’s nothing extraordinary but it’s nice at the same time even if it does feel a little forced. 

He’s in the kitchen afterwards, washing the dishes, while everyone else is in the living room drinking and talking loudly and laughing obnoxiously. He’s just about to put the dishes away when Betty walks into the room. 

“It’s a bit loud in there,” she tells him. “I had to get away from them and their never ending stories about college.” 

“They’re an eventful bunch,” Jughead snorts. “Just the kind of people I would have expected her to be friends with.” 

“I think Archie’s about to fight the blonde haired one,” she informs him. “He keeps putting his hand on V’s knee and Archie’s turning the color of his hair at it.” Jughead snorts while Betty smiles. “Do you need any help?” 

“Nah, I’m about done.”

“Want some company then?” 

“Sure,” he tells her. She hops onto the kitchen counter next to him and crosses her legs as she sits down. They’re quiet and it starts to get a little awkward. “I don’t really know what to say to you.” 

“Yeah, me neither.” 

He hates how they’ve become this; two people who used to be able to talk for hours without running out of topics can now not think of a single thing to say to each other. He even misses when they used to be able to sit in silence for hours without it being awkward. 

“My mom misses you,” Betty says. “She’s a bit upset you didn’t stay for dinner the other night.” 

“Can you blame me?” He tells her, without thinking about it. He immediately feels bad once he sees the way her cheeks brighten as she looks away in embarrassment. “Fuck. I’m sorry, Betty. I’m trying not to be a dick—.” 

“I deserve it,” she cuts him off. “I probably deserve a whole lot worse.”

“You don’t,” he tells her. “I understand why you did what you did. I get why you ran off and I don’t blame you for it. Yeah I wish you would have come back and let me explain, but I also understand why you didn’t. I can’t spend the rest of my life holding it against you. I just need some time, okay?” 

“Okay,” she whispers. “That’s understandable.” 

“I do miss your mom’s cooking, you know. I haven’t had a good home cooked meal in a while. Reggie’s tried, but he cooks like shit.” 

“Reggie?” She asks. 

“My agent and friend. He took a cooking class for a week and suddenly declared himself the next Gordon Ramsey,” Jughead smiles at the memory. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his cooking was terrible.” 

“Do you have many friends in Los Angeles?” 

He shrugs. “Not really.”

“Oh,” she looks around and she starts to shake her leg nervously. Jughead can tell that she wants to ask him something else so he just looks at her in question, silently willing her to continue with her questioning. “So you don’t have anyone over there?” 

He knows what she means. She’s asking if he has a girlfriend. He almost wants to tell her yes or remind her that it’s none of her business anymore. That’s not what a friend would do though, he reminds himself and so he does neither. 

“No,” is all he says. She just nods.

“Well, if you miss home cooked meals you could always come by for dinner,” she tells him, changing the subject. “My mom would love to have you over before you go back.” 

“Yeah, maybe,” he nods. He wants to ask if she’s seen anyone else. He assumes that she’s not currently seeing anyone right now, but that doesn’t mean that she didn’t in the past. He hates the way a sudden jolt of anger flows through him at the idea of anyone else with her. He’d always felt possessive over her, knowing just how great of a girl she was, and it seems like that trait had never gone away. 

“Do you have anyone?” He asks her, trying to seem nonchalant about it. 

She looks taken aback at the question before she shakes her head. “No, I tried—.”

“You tried?” He asks, jealousy flowing through him. “What does that mean?” 

“I went on a few dates,” she says warily, confused by his sudden change in attitude.

He clenches the edge of the kitchen counter tightly. “With who?” He’s torturing himself, he knows he is, but he can’t help it. He needs to know. 

She whispers her answer so lightly at first that he doesn’t catch it. 

“Who?” He asks again, harder this time. 

“Trev,” she sighs. 

“Trev from high school?” He sneers. “You’re serious?” 

Betty gives him a less than impressed look. 

“He’s a nice guy, Jughead,” she tells him. “He was very sweet.”

“Yeah? Then why isn’t he here with you right now? Why isn’t he the one talking to you at this party?” 

“It didn’t work out,” she bites out, getting worked up. 

“Why’s that?” 

It feels like they’re playing a game here. Jughead hadn’t even noticed but he was a lot closer to her now, closer than he had been when they first started talking. 

“Why didn’t it work out, Betts?” The nickname falls from his lips accidentally, rolling off his tongue in a sickly sweet way. 

“It just didn’t.” 

“Is it because he wasn’t me?” He asks her tauntingly. He doesn’t know where this is coming from, but the idea of her with anyone else makes his blood boil. 

“Is it because you know that no one’s ever going to love you the way I did?” He steps closer to her. 

“Is it because you know that I’m the only one who knows you?” He places his hand onto her knee and she stiffens. 

“Because I’m the only one who knows exactly what you need?” He pries her legs open and she willingly lets him. 

“Because no one knows your body like I do?” He trails a fingertip up her leg, under her dress. She shivers but doesn’t stop him. 

“Because I’m the only one who’s ever going to be in your heart? Face it, Betty, no one will ever stand a chance against me. I’m the one who’s always going to be in the back of your mind no matter how many times you try to get over me. I’m the only one you’ll ever love and anyone else is just a waste of time.” 

It happens quickly after that. Betty lurches forward and wraps her hands around his neck, bringing him closer to her and he places himself between her legs and connects his lips to hers. It’s a rough and bruising kiss, it’s fast and their teeth knock together several times as he bites her lip harshly. He wraps his hand around her golden hair and pulls it back, exposing her neck to him. She hisses out in pleasure as he places his lips onto her neck and sucks gently on the soft skin there before kissing down to where her skin meets her dress. 

He lets go of her hair and places his hands onto her legs, running them underneath her dress as he squeezes her thighs. He kisses her again, this time it isn’t as sloppy. He kisses her long and hard, passionately. He wants her to remember this. He wants her to feel this kiss for days. He wants her to think of this kiss every time another guy so much as looks in her direction. 

“You’re mine,” he growls at her. “No matter how much you try to stop it, you know that you’re always going to be mine. You’ll never move on. I’m always going to be stuck in your head. I want you to remember this whenever you decide to fuck another random guy to get over me.” 

It’s like someone pours a bucket of ice cold water over him. Betty pauses and pulls away from him. Jughead’s confused at first before he realizes what he had just said. 

“Fuck,” he hisses to himself, “I didn’t mean it like that.” 

Betty pushes him away and jumps off the countertop. 

“What was that?” She asks. Her lips are swollen from the kiss and it drives Jughead wild even though he knows that he’s royally screwed up. “Was that all just because I told you I went on a few dates with someone? What are you trying to prove here, Jughead? That I fucked up? That I still love you? Are you trying to use my own feelings against me?”

“Betty,” he tries but he can’t find the words he wants to say. 

“Because I know, okay, I know. I know that I fucked up. I spend everyday of my life wishing I could take back that day. I miss you so much sometimes that it physically hurts. I cry myself to sleep sometimes because I know that you’re never going to love me the same way again. But I do. I still love you so much, Jughead. So why would you do that? Why would you kiss me? You knew…” she pauses as her bottom lip starts to wobble. “You knew I still loved you.” 

He wants to tell her that he still loves her too. That he never stopped. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything. He just stares at her. 

He doesn’t say anything as a tear slips from her eyes. He doesn’t say anything as she walks out of the kitchen. He doesn’t say anything when Veronica and Archie come into the kitchen, demanding to know what just happened. 

He stays quiet just like he did all those years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YIKES?????  
> Okay so before you get mad at Jughead, remember that this poor boy is confused out of his damn mind. He loves her, but he doesn't trust her. He loves her, but he doesn't want to be with her because he's scared of getting hurt again. He doesn't know what he's doing at all. But he's TRYING OKAY.  
> Anyways I just had to change the entire plot and storyline I was going with because this chapter just kind of decided to write itself here.   
> I hope ya'll enjoyed this one. 
> 
> As always, here's my [tumblr](http://camelotskingz.tumblr.com)! <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ready for an absolute CHEEST FEST?  
> A lot of dialogue in this one, guys. Hope you're okay with that.   
> They finally sit and talk maturely over things. It's one step forward for these two estranged lovers. :)

He knows he made a mistake. What he said to Betty had been wrong and thoughtless. It was the exact opposite of what he had meant to tell her, but it was what came out. The jealousy and anger he had been feeling had boiled up. They were feelings he’d been suppressing for years. The idea of her possibly being with anyone else had plagued his mind, and her confirming it had made all of those repressed feelings come to a head. 

He regretted it. He had regretting it as soon as the words fell from his lips. He’d seen the way her face completely changed, the way she looked at him. She had never looked at him like that before, not even when she had found out about the book. The words she had thrown towards him had hurt because he knew that in that moment he was no better than she was for leaving him all those years ago. He had been cruel and harsh and throughout everything Betty had done, she hadn’t deserved any of that. 

Which was why he currently sat in her kitchen, right across from her at the dinner table. He’d had countless dinners here with her family years ago. He’s even sitting in the chair that he used to always sit in. It had been his spot. They all had unassigned seats that they sat in every night for dinner, and somehow Jughead had made his way into the family and earned his own spot at the Cooper dinner table. He wondered if Betty still remembered. 

She’s staring down at the cup of tea she had made. She’s taken two sips from it. Jughead hasn’t touched his. He said he wanted to talk, to apologize, but nothing comes out of his mouth. He came here to talk things out, but he isn’t the one who speaks first. It’s her. 

“You’re still the only one,” she whispers out softly. Jughead tilts his head in confusion. “The only one I’ve ever been with,” she confirms. “I never slept with Trev or anyone else. I never wanted to.”

Her confession makes him feel even more like shit over the words he’d thrown at her the other night. He needs to make this right. If nothing else, he can at least make this one thing right. 

“We need to talk about everything,” he finally says. “Like adults. No yelling, no accusing each other of things. We just need to talk.” 

“Okay.” 

And just like that the words come falling from his lips. 

“I don’t hate you,” he confesses, not just to her but to himself as well. “I never did. I don’t think there’s a universe out there where I could ever hate you. Despite what you did, you were my best friend and I’ll always love you for everything you’ve done for me. At one point in my life, you were everything to me and so I can’t hate you. I was mad, though. Sometimes I still feel so mad over what happened, but I don’t think I’m mad at _you_ anymore.” He runs his fingertips across the mug in front of him. 

“I’m mad at the fact that we lost five years. Maybe we lost them because you’re one stubborn girl.” Betty lets out a soft laugh and Jughead smiles gently. “Maybe we lost them because I moved to Los Angeles. Maybe we lost them because we had to. We were young. Despite how old we tried to act and how mature we made ourselves seem, we were still kids. We were kids trying to live the lives our parent’s lived and maybe that’s why all this happened.” 

“You think this happened for a reason?” She asks, unsure and unbelieving. 

“I do, but then I don’t. We’ll never know what would have happened if I had never written that book. We’ll never know what would have happened if you had just come back that night or even if I had gone after you. You see, I can’t even really be mad at you, Betty. Because yes, you left me, but I didn’t run after you.” 

It’s the one thing that’s haunted him all these years. He didn’t run after Betty. He had assumed that she would just come back to him and then when she didn’t, he grew mad at her for it. Now though, he realizes that he could have chased after her. He didn’t though and he can’t change that. He’s at a fault here too. 

“I don’t know why I didn’t,” he says. “It doesn’t matter now. I can’t spend my life thinking about the what if’s. I just need you to know that I don’t hate you.” 

“Your book was beautiful,” she whispers suddenly. “Sometimes I think about the way I acted towards you when I found out about it and I think that’s what makes me feel the worst. It was something I should have been happy about, something that I should have supported you about, but I didn’t. I did the exact opposite and I’m sorry. Above everything else, I am sorry that I wasn’t there to encourage you when you needed it the most.” 

“I almost didn’t publish it,” he laughs humorlessly. 

“I know, but I’m glad you did.” She reaches across the table and wraps her hand around his, squeezing tightly. It sends a burst of love and affection through him, one that he hasn’t felt in so long. He hadn’t felt this the other night as he ravished her on a kitchen countertop. That was primal, but this? This was sentimental. It was everything he and Betty once were. He shuts his eyes tightly at the feeling and when he opens them again, Betty’s eyes are watery. He wonders if maybe she can feel it too. 

“I’m glad you published it, Juggie.” The old nickname squeezes at his heart, but for once it doesn’t hurt. “I’m so proud of you. I’m proud of what you’ve done and what you’ve become. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for it. That will always be my biggest regret, but I just want you to know with everything you’ve done… I’m just so proud of you.” A tear falls from her eyes and he yearns to reach out and wipe it away. The table kind of restricts that though. 

“When I dedicated the book to you, I didn’t do it in malice.” He remembers the words she had hissed at him that night. They still hurt, but it’s a dull kind of hurt now. “I did it because the book is yours. It’s always been yours. Without you, it wouldn’t exist. I wouldn’t have written it for anyone else.” He doesn’t know how he knows this, but he does. He knows with everything inside of him that it was always only meant for Betty. 

“I dedicated it to you because I figured that maybe one day down the road you’d pick it up and read it and when you saw the dedication, that I still loved you, you’d know. You’d know that no matter what, it was always you. It’ll always be you.” 

“What if I had been fifty?” She says with a watery laugh. She’s full on crying now, but it’s not a sad kind of crying. 

“It’d still be true,” he tells her. “It’ll always be true. Whether we’re sixteen, thirty, fifty, or a hundred. Whether we’re together here in Riverdale or I’m in Los Angeles and you’re in New York.” 

He wants to say it. He’s dying to say it, but not yet. They sit there for a while, staring at each other in silence. For once it’s a comfortable silence, one that he’s missed. It reminds him of eating breaking with her in the mornings as she read the newspaper and he read a book. 

“Whether you’re here in Riverdale with me,” Betty breaks the silence, “or in Los Angeles, I want you to know that I’ll never give up on us. If you can’t be with me now then I’ll understand and I won’t push you, but I want you to know that this time I’m not walking away from you. Whether we’re thirty, fifty, or a hundred; I love you, Jughead Jones and I’m not walking away.” 

It’s becoming a pattern, him not saying anything during these times. He doesn’t have to though, not this time. Everything he wants to say to her is yelled out in the way he all but leaps over the table to connect their lips together. She meets him half way and it’s a kiss that’s wet from her tears, but it’s perfect. It’s everything the other night wasn’t. It’s soft, sweet, and promising. It’s full of love. It’s gentle. It’s everything they used to be. It’s everything they _will_ be. It’s letting go of the past one step at a time. It’s looking towards the future. 

They have a lot to discuss still. There will be days he stays up late, thoughts stuck on a darker time. There will be times he questions if this is worth it. 

But as he pulls away and sees the way Betty looks at him, he knows that it is. 

This is worth it. She is worth it. _They_ are worth it. 

They are inevitable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe I meant to make this one a bit more angsty, but I was listening to I Won't Give Up by Christina Grimmie and guess what? I think it's time these two move forward. <3 
> 
> I really hope you guys liked this chapter.   
> As always, feel free to come talk to me on [tumblr](http://camelotskingz.tumblr.com).


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real quick: I'm so sorry it took me so long to update this story. I had every intention of finishing it as those of you who follow me on Tumblr will know, but I just kind of lost all inspiration and love for this story. 
> 
> You guys deserve an ending though so I'm here to deliver. This is pretty short, but it's a short story in general so I hope you enjoy. :)
> 
> Also this is the first story I've ever completed, wow.

His days are full of Betty Cooper. He makes sure to spend as much time with her as possible. They’ll never get the five years back that they lost, but it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters now is that they both work to try to be happy and mend things between them. 

They spend their days at Betty’s, watching movies and talking about everything and anything. They spend time with Archie and Veronica, the core four back together. They have dinner with Betty’s mom and Jughead’s dad. Betty fills him in on Polly and Jughead tells her about Reggie and all their adventures. It feels incredible to be able to catch up with her. 

They’re only with each other for four days, but somehow it feels like a lifetime. This is how it always was with Betty. Days with her felt like a lifetime and he loved it so much; the feeling of knowing that they had forever between them. They had lost that once, but he knew they wouldn’t lose it again. This time they were both going to fight to make sure that what they had would never end. It was perfect. 

At least until Reggie called. 

In a way, Jughead knew that his time with her was limited. He had priorities back in Los Angeles. He had a job and a life there and responsibilities. He couldn’t just leave all that behind for Betty, no matter how much he had to. He’d just gotten her back and he didn’t want to lose her all over again. 

“You won’t lose me,” she promises him whenever he tells her this. “I understand that you have a life back in California and I would never do anything to take that away from you. I’ll still be here whenever you decide to come back home.” 

Home. Riverdale was home, it had always been home. Home wasn’t his lavish and lonely apartment back in Los Angeles. It was a cramped up apartment that barely had any hot water with Betty. He knew it, yet he still agrees to leave the next day to fly back to Los Angeles. 

“I don’t want to leave you,” he tells Betty as they lay on her bed together his last night there. “I just got you back.” 

“You’re never going to lose me again, Jughead Jones. I love you.” 

The words sound so beautiful coming from her lips. They’re words he never thought he’d hear again from her and he basks in them. 

He leans over and kisses Betty gently on the lips. They kiss like they have all the time in the world for it and Jughead rolls on top of her to get in a better position. 

“I’ve missed you,” he whispers to her. 

“I’m right here.” 

And she is. 

Jughead continues to kiss her and as it heats up, he places a hand at the bottom of her t shirt that she’d been wearing. He pulls on it gently and looks up at her in question, a silent request, and she nods her permission. He takes off her top and kisses his way down to her shorts. 

Betty shivers at the feeling of his lips on her skin and he loves that he can get this kind of reaction out of her even after all these years.

When he finally gets to her shorts, he pulls them off along with the colorful panties she’s wearing that have little teddy bears on them. Jughead holds them up in question, smirking at her, and she takes them away from him and throws them across the room. 

“I wasn’t planning on this,” she mumbles out in defense. 

“But do you want this?” 

“Oh, now you ask after you’ve already taken off all my clothes?” Jughead mock glares at her and she just smiles. “Yes, I want this. I want this more than anything.”

At her consent, Jughead leans forward and places his mouth against her clit. He used to love doing this to Betty. She made the prettiest sounds and he loved the way her body reacted to him. Watching and listening to her come could probably be his own undoing.

It isn’t long before she’s doing just that and Jughead holds onto her shaking legs, letting her ride his face through her own orgasm. 

When she’s done, and she’s nothing but a panting mess, he crawls back up to her and places a kiss on each of her breasts. She’s always had beautiful breasts and they’ve always been one of his favorite parts of her to play with. Right now though, he just needs to be inside of her. 

“I love you,” he tells her as he lines himself up with her. “I love you so much.”

She mouths the words back to him, her voice so low that he can’t actually hear anything fall from her lips. It’s okay, though because he already knows. 

He pushes himself inside of her slowly and Betty lets out a soft moan. 

It’s slow and it’s passionate. It’s not how they used to have sex, all wild and rough, but it’s somehow better right now. It feels like it’s exactly what they need to be doing. 

Betty’s so tight and warm and she feels so good that he knows he won’t last long. He had missed this so much, missed the feeling of being inside of her, of being this close to her. He wants to remember this moment forever. He wants to carry it with him for the rest of his life. 

He comes quickly and if it were anyone else, he’d probably be embarrassed but it’s not. It’s Betty and so he feels the way he always does around her, completely happy and content. 

“We’re going to be okay,” Betty tells him as they lay side by side later on in the night.

“Yeah,” he says. “We are.” 

 

California doesn’t feel like home to him anymore. It feels like a stranger. 

Leaving Betty had been the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. He’d seen the tears in her eyes and he almost ran out of the airport and went home with her. She’d never let him do that, though. She cared way too much about his future for him to do that. Jughead wonders if she knew that she was the only thing in his future that he needed. 

He did need to take care of things here though, which was probably why he didn’t ditch the plane ride and stay in Riverdale.

Reggie is happy that he’s back in the city and Jughead has to admit that it does feel good to be back with his best friend. He goes to a few book signings and a couple of conventions, but it’s nothing new or exciting. He talks to Betty every day and when he sees her smiling back at him on FaceTime, he doesn’t know if he feels better or worse. He promises that he’ll fly out and see her soon, but he’s so busy that it just feels like an old lie.

It’s been a month and a half when he notices things start to change between them. 

Betty always seems a little preoccupied and not into their conversations. He tries to tell himself that it’s just because she’s busy with life, but it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like she’s pulling away from him and he doesn’t know what to do about it. 

Archie and Veronica deny knowing anything about her actions or feelings and he knows they’re both lying, but he won’t try to fight them on it. He just has to give Betty some space and believe that she was telling the truth when she said they’d be okay. 

 

He’s at another book signing. 

It’s nothing new and truth be told, he’s a bit bored. How many times can he sign the same book? He’s pretty sure Reggie’s just milking it now until Jughead finally decides to write something new. Luckily, he had been struck with inspiration for a new novel. It was a story about reconciliation and finding your way back to someone. It was coming along nicely, but he knew that Reggie wouldn’t be the first to read it whenever it came out. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. He knew who needed to read this novel first and he couldn’t wait to show her it. 

He’s looking down as a person slides a pair of little light green baby booties towards him. He looks at them in confusion before he looks up and sees Betty standing in front of him. He can’t believe that she’s actually standing in front of him and he doesn’t know what to do out of complete shock. He’s frozen in his seat as he stares at her radiant face.

It’s just like the first time she’d come to Los Angeles months before, but this time she’s carrying a big bag and there’s a suitcase behind her. 

“It’s too early to know the sex, but Veronica swears that those booties with go either way.” 

Jughead looks at her in confusion, not understanding what she’s trying to say. Betty gives him a watery smile. 

“I’m pregnant, Juggie,” she whispers out. It’s all they’ve ever wanted and Jughead doesn’t know how to react. It sounds like a dream. “We’re going to be parents.” 

Jughead smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr](http://camelotskingz.tumblr.com)! <3
> 
> Oh! I made Reggie Juggie's best friend because I just really want to write him! Also I've been watching a lot of Archie's Weird Mysteries and his character is just a freaking dream, lol.


End file.
